


Ouroboros: Volume One

by Justanothershortstory_sofar



Series: OUROBOROS [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Crawling out of a grave, F/M, If you squint there's some background Keyleth/Vax, Medical Themes, Modern AU, Nightmares, Occult, Pacts with dark entities, Poor choices all around, Red/Undercooked Meat, Resurrection, The DeRolos are the Briarwoods AU, Vampires, Warlocks, also every chapter title is a hozier lyric, horror tropes galore, killing an animal, they will fuck at chapter three I promise you
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-01-30 23:08:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21436201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Justanothershortstory_sofar/pseuds/Justanothershortstory_sofar
Summary: Vex'ahlia De Rolo has been a widow for six days.  The whole situation strikes her as massively unfair, leading her to somewhat destructive and dangerous choices to bring her husband back.
Relationships: Percival "Percy" Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III/Vex'ahlia
Series: OUROBOROS [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1545403
Comments: 28
Kudos: 47





	1. I Prayed My Mind Be Good to Me

**Author's Note:**

> Additional content warning tags at the end of this work (spoiler warning!) Thanks for reading in advance! Ouroboros will update Fridays.

One week after the death of her husband, Vex’ahlia De Rolo snuck through the window of the gothic-style house she’d just begun to call home with a knife. Her body still hummed with the fever that had overtaken her for days now, the same one that had stolen her husband away from her. Her feet in their hiking boots made no noise along the wet summer grass of the perfectly manufactured lawn, and she darted to the treeline before she was seen. She shivered in the warm night, pulling her arms around herself and tugging at the hood of her black sweatshirt emblazoned with the engineering college where Percy was due to start a fellowship in a few months. 

Vex’ahlia was not much for superstition or religion. As far as she was concerned, hymns and prayer was Pike’s realm, and dark devils and pentagrams belonged to her brother. Percy was a man of science, it was his only god. It had failed him, in the end. Doctors couldn’t cure the fever fast enough, couldn’t keep his heart beating long enough for the antibiotics to work, and the stronger chemicals made in a laboratory wrecked his liver before they could fix him. What was she to do, then, with a lover gone, and not a thing she could do? Her husband of only six months, her fiance of one year, her boyfriend of three years, and her friend of six years: she was not yet ready to be a widow, not ready to live in this big house all alone. 

What was she to do? Take up a bargain with any superstition, any god, any being that would have her, of course. In her youth, she’d heard legend of a forest god, willing to bestow favors if the moon and stars aligned properly. The past five days of research only served to add proof to the legends, of an ancient being with unfathomable power, who could be found at the darkest hour of one’s life. She carried with her a leather-bound book that confirmed her findings– if she was lucky, if she’d mapped the stars right, she would find something in the woods somewhere. 

She emerged upon a clearing in the forest, lush and green, with patches of bluish-green moss dotting the roots of trees, forming an almost-perfect circle. Vex lay out the heavy leather-bound book she had become devout to in the center. She took the kitchen knife from her belt, drawing a long line with the blade against the flesh of her palm. It stung as it parted her skin, more than she thought it would have. Her hand shook as she took the knife away, holding out her cut hand to the clear sky so as to let her blood pool. 

From a local “mystical healer” in town, she was able to purchase ground crystals in the types specified by the book: rose quartz, jade, diamond. It cost her an arm and a leg, and even now, under the moonlight, cutting open her hand, she doubted the usefulness of this whole exercise. This didn’t strike her as harmless fantasy, not now, at least. Her husband’s life, her life, was at stake. She hesitated, then mixed the powdered dust with the blood in her hand. 

She took two fingers from her other hand, dipped them into the paint made of her blood and precious stones, and drew the emblems laid out in the book: a large ring with a filled circle at the top. Vex repeated this six times, on the trees, on stones, and on the grass. She bandaged her hand after six, cleaning the blood off with an antiseptic wipe that burned, wrapping it carefully in gauze. Exhausted, she sat for a moment at the stump of a tree. She didn’t notice when she fell asleep, her head cradled by the blue-green moss on the trees. 

Vex dreamt she was running. She didn’t know how she knew she was dreaming, yet she could tell nonetheless. She couldn’t feel her feet strike the ground, she moved forward at a speed greater than she could normally run. The wind whipped around her face, howling in her ears. Her foot caught on a root, causing her to sprawl forward, catching her fall with her hand. It stung madly, and as she looked at her palms, she saw the long cut along her hand open up once again, wider and longer than she remembered cutting. Something hard was buried in her hand, not bone or flesh, something that should not exist there. She wiped away the blood from her hand, oozing away from her skin darker than she’d think blood should be, more black than red. There, in the palm of her hand, was a large yellow eye, like a snake. The slit of her hand closed, the eye appears to blink.  _ OUROBOROS,  _ it whispers. 

“FUCK!” Vex swore as she awoke, her hand burning. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, she needed to keep watch, she needed to stay awake, what if she missed her chance? The moon, full and brilliantly bright, still hung overhead. Her watch told her it was three in the morning. She stood, rubbing at her burning hand. Vex paced the circle, waiting, wondering. She thought about Percy, about every inch of his body she knew so, so well. 

A shriek, a noise unlike one she’d heard before, filled the air. She knew these woods well enough from all the hiking and camping they’d engaged in as newlyweds in a new town. Without thinking, she ran towards it, her feet narrowly dodging tree roots and sharp stones. She turned on a flashlight, giving her a small amount of light.

A fox caught her eye, unusual to see in the woods. Normally, they were all too quick for her to spot, darting from one tree to another. This one, however, lay almost entirely still, it’s chest heaving up and down as it tried to bring breath into it’s dying body. It had been nearly bitten entirely in half, mauled by something far bigger. As she approached, it watched her with unblinking yellow eyes laced with fear, reflecting the beam of her flashlight. It bore its teeth. Even on death’s door, it was willing and ready to fight. 

“Easy, easy.” She spoke in soft tones. It wasn’t right to leave it here. Surely, it would die- but not for days now, unless whatever had eaten roughly half of the fox came back to finish the job. Her hand found a heavy stone, and she dispatched the fox. 

From the treeline, she heard the whisper of leaves, something large moving the duff on the ground, nails on stones. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She turned her light to the woods, then, softly, turned it off. She’d dealt with wolves in this wood before. Something bothered her about the teeth marks on the fox, something wasn’t quite right– it was the teeth of something much larger than a wolf or a coyote. 

She spoke the word she’d heard in her dream, a name ancient and powerful. “Ouroboros.” It felt thick on her tongue, her voice wavering on the unfamiliar syllables. The rustling came from behind her now, closer than before. She spun around. “OUROBOROS.” She spoke, louder. 

A glistening pair of yellow eyes opened by the treeline. Each the size of her palm, slitted like a snake, like the eye from her dream. The creature emerged from the woods, illuminated slowly by the light of the moon. Grey and black speckled fur coat and a body like a wolf, with a proud head, held high and a mouth full of too many crooked and sharp teeth born at her. Patches of its body were covered with blue-green scales. Around its neck rested a snake, swallowing its own tail, bearing the same yellow eyes. It spoke, without moving a muscle. 

_ “An exchange must be made. Service, for a resurrection, and powers greater than you could ever imagine, dear, sweet Vex’ahlia Vasser.”  _ _   
_

“Anything.” Her heart pounded, as tears, the tears she hadn’t let herself cry, came forth in full force. “Just bring me to him, or him to me. I’ll do what you want.” 

_ “As you wish.”  _ As suddenly as it had appeared, it vanished. Vex, still dripping blood from her hand, walked away from the dead fox in the forest, in the woods somewhere. 

She hadn’t really been sleeping, not deeply at least. Vex had not gone a day in the six months of their marriage, or really, in the year of their engagement prior to the wedding, without lying beside him, and she wasn’t about to start. While Percy was still alive, she slept in the bed next to him, as she got better and he didn’t. The night he died, she slept half on his chest, feeling his every last breath until his body gave out. She spent two nights in the funeral home, sleeping on a cot next to his coffin. And now, in the four nights since he was put into the earth, she slept there. 

Vex lay by the tombstone, her face wet and hot from fever and activity and tears. Having made her move of last resort, she let herself sleep. 


	2. No Grave Can Hold My Body Down, I'll Crawl Home to Her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a miracle occurs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter-specific content warnings at the end.

Percival awoke to a start, taking a heaving breath that filled his dormant lungs. It was accompanied by a searing pain in his ribs as air entered his body again, bringing life back to him. His movements were sluggish, his extremities felt numb in the cold. He blinked hard, trying to assess what was occurring. His glasses were perched on the tip of his nose, but he couldn’t see anything but darkness. He stretched out a hand when feeling returned. Not more than a foot in front of him was a soft strip of silky fabric, covering a hard casing. His breaths came in even now, tinged with the smell of formaldehyde, growing faster as panic entered his body. Memories, too, were starting to emerge, of the past days: hospitals and medicines and Vex… In a frenzy, he struck above him, hearing the thud of the metal. Screaming now, he struck once more and felt the metal begin to give way.

It was not possible for an ordinary man to dent metal with his bare hand. No, and if he was right, if this was his _ coffin_, no doubt made with a uselessly (for this purpose) strong metal such as titanium… There were only two possible explanations for this impossibility. One, which seemed far more likely to be true, held that this was merely an aberration of his thoughts, the last neurons firing in the split seconds before he died. Two, the less likely, was that he was not, in fact, dead, and instead, was buried falsely, and the panic he felt was unleashing the super-strength hidden in human bodies. Adrenaline and a momentary lack of consequences in the face of grave danger lead to force that could prompt adults to lift three times their body weight. If the first was true, there was no longer a function in the struggle. But if the second was true… if he could get back to Vex, somehow, it would be worth anything. He continued to break the coffin, scratching and tearing at the satin cloth. His fist, eventually, broke through the metal, splintering apart and cutting at his hand. Paying it no mind, he pushed at the metal, peeling it away as dirt began to fill the coffin. He took a deep breath and began to dig upwards, using gravity to his advantage, cutting at his knuckles. He shouted, half in pain, half triumphant. Dirt began to fall into the coffin- fast. Wriggling, he pulled free of the blazer he was buried in, tying it around his face to keep from breathing in dirt. He began to peel away more of the metal that was behaving more like tinfoil than anything strong, pushing himself upright when he could to begin the difficult process of returning to the surface. His fingers clawed at the dirt, stuck in a constant upward motion. It was dark, darker than anything he’d ever experienced. He told himself not to panic by the claustrophobic situation, the dirt and the dark. He was likely dying anyway, after all. Soon there would be nothing, nothing at all but the damp soil– and this thought scared him more than any darkness or burial. 

He heard something above him- muffled by the feet of damp soil that was sticking to his skin, but a sound nonetheless, of someone living. Surely, they’d realized this was all a big mistake! He was alive, not dead. He heard something below him, too, as little as he cared to admit it, a low rumble of some sort almost like a laugh, like from the deepest depths of Hades. Encouraged by both, he began to dig with increasing fervor. 

“PERCY!” The sound was muffled, like listening to it from the bottom of a swimming pool. His hand felt the air, the fingers feeling around the damp soil. Another hand enclosed around his hand, soft and small as it squeezed him tightly, then let go. Without much more care in the world, he thrust himself back to the surface, to the land of the living. With his torso aboveground, he pulled his other arm away from the dirt, tearing the jacket away from his face. He laughed, coughing midway through to dry heave some dirt from his mouth. One leg, then the other, emerged from the dirt, until he was on the surface, hands and knees pressed against the dirt. His chest, his head- they were pounding with adrenaline. 

“Percy…” Vex put her hand on his face. “It’s you.” She buried her face in his chest, as she’d done countless times before, as she wept into his soiled shirt. 

“Vex,” He breathed, holding her in his arms. “It’s me. It’s you.” 

They must have stayed there for an eternity. Vex wiped her tears away to kiss every part of his face, bringing feeling back to his numb extremities as she did. 

“Vex?” A familiar voice, yet one he couldn’t quite place, called out into the night, accompanied by a bright flashlight beam. “Vex, you can’t keep sleeping out here. You won’t bring him back, sister…” 

The figure stopped dead as he saw the two of them. Vax dropped the flashlight. 

A week ago, Percival De Rolo was declared dead at 3:41 am, from heart failure. At 3:41 am, exactly one week later, he returned to a hospital- a different one, this time. He’d lost consciousness almost immediately after reemerging on the surface of the earth. Vex waits, again, like the last time– Vax by her side. The cut on her hand, where she’d seen the eye in her dream and mixed diamond and jade and quartz dust into her blood was much smaller than she’d remembered. 

“What did you do, Stubby?” Vax notices the gauze on her hand. 

“I... cut it on some glass. I’m going for a walk.” She pulls off the blanket. “I’ll be back soon, I just… need to stretch my legs.” 

There was a prickling on the back of her neck she couldn’t shake, a feeling of being watched that had persisted throughout the long night. It wasn’t that she minded, per se, but more that it was accompanied by the creeping sensation of her dream, of the idea that though her husband was returned to her, she still had work to do this morning to ensure he stayed with her. 

They’d take him away if they knew he survived death, someone would want to test and see why he had not only survived when science said he had died but why he had survived four days buried underground and how he had managed to break through a coffin. No, she couldn’t have this. 

_ “Act.” _ She spun rapidly, looking for the voice of Ouroboros. Nothing was living in the hall, save for herself and a small, brown mouse. It blinked yellowed eyes at her. _ “Act, Vex’ahlia.” _

She was a stealthy person. And she knew what tests they were doing, with rough guesses of where and how. There was action to be taken, and by god, she was going to do it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for digging self out of a grave. 
> 
> Chapter three goes up next Friday! Thank you so much for reading, and if you liked this chapter, please hit that kudos button or leave a comment! You can also find me on @zoetriestobecoolbutnope on Tumblr, and you can see some more of my work in the upcoming Folk Tales of Exandria Zine (https://folktalesofexandria.tumblr.com/).


	3. Kill the Lights and Kiss my Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As promised, the fuck chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More content warnings at the end, check them this time as there are some disturbing themes in this chapter. Please let me know if there's additional content I should be tagging that I missed!

After a week of observation, countless tests and more than a few questions, the cheerful De Rolos return to their happy home. There was some unread mail there for them, and a welcome back (to the living!) party at Pike’s they’d just returned from. As they walk up the steps of their house, the little projects and upkeep that normally would have overwhelmed Vex leave her mind, even as she notices the peeling paint on the shutters and the shaking of the stairwell banister. Storm clouds were gathering overhead, dark and moody in their composition. 

Percy closes their front door, painted vibrant pine green, behind them. Vex proceeds to pin him against it, kissing her husband with all the pent up lust and longing from the hell of a month she’s had. He responds to her touch the way he always had, lips parting and tongue coming to meet hers, growing hard under the slightest touch. His hands wander until it is cupping her ass and running along her thighs. Without any strain, he lifts her. Nothing about him suggests a man that was dead two weeks ago. Her hands get lost in the thicket of his shockingly white hair. 

One step at a time, he carries her up the stairs, her legs wrapped around his torso. They stop in the landing in between floors, where he presses her into a corner, his hips pressed against hers. She laughs in between kisses. With no-one in the house but them and no neighbors for miles, Vex has had it with caution. She unbuttons the top of her dark red sundress, letting it fall to the ground in a puddle of cotton. Her heeled boots click on the floor as she leads Percy up the last few stairs. 

They stumble, drunk on love, into their bedroom. The air is stale from two weeks of disuse. Vex separates from Percy for a moment to open the long and narrow windows set in their house. She opens two of the five before he grows impatient, kissing her neck and wrapping his arms around her waist. She gasps as he bites down, hard and passionate. His tongue plays with her skin, a frenzy of biting and licking and sucking, moving from where her neck meets her shoulder to her chest, to directly above where her lace-trimmed bra ended. Vex spun around, her hands finding the hem of his close-fitting light grey t-shirt and lifting it to reveal the (to most people) shockingly ripped abs of her spouse. She pulls it over his head and tosses it aside, knocking his round wire glasses to the ground with abandon. Percy lifts her a second time, laying her down on the bed. With utmost reverence, he unlaces her knee-high leather boots, removing them from her feet with great care. His hands, callused but acting with gentleness, slowly slides her silky panties over her thighs and down to the floor. He kisses her knees, her thighs, making his way ever higher, leaving little love bites dotting her skin. She lets out a moan as his lips find their way to her clit, moving in hypnotic, rhythmic patterns she loves so much. Vex cries out, her hands pulling against his hair, clutching onto the bedpost with everything she could. 

“Your turn, darling.” She whispers, as soon as she can manage speech. Her hands go for his belt buckle, tugging down the fly of his jeans. 

Vex knew she was dreaming again. After the first waking dream, she’d done a quick google search. From her research, this seemed somewhat close to lucid dreaming, meaning she had control over the things that happened. She breathed calmly- she was the master of this universe. 

Lights flickered on, illuminating a long, sterile, white hallway. It was not the hospital where Percy had died, but a hospital nonetheless. It had no doors along the white expanse of walls, and she began to wander, her feet sticking to the linoleum tiles. She must have wandered through this long hall stretching onto infinity before she comes to an open door. Vex heard the sounds of a ventilator making it’s mechanical inhale, the beeping of heart monitors. It was furnished sparingly, with more machines than furniture, no windows. She didn’t want to look at the bed. She didn’t want to, kept her head facing the wall. She considered simply running back down the hall, the way she came. Yet. Curiosity overcame the better parts of her resolve, turning her head slowly to the bed. 

What was she expecting? Percy was there. She rushed to his side, taking his hand in hers. She sat in the melancholy, a feeling she knew so well. 

The machine stopped, the ventilator ceased, the slow, gradual beep of the heart monitor changed to a long, monotone, continuous sound, melding with the scream that escaped her lips before she realized she’d taken a breath. The hand she was holding grew cold, colder than ice. She looked down, and it was rotting, falling to pieces in her hands. 

The sign of Oroboros was on the wall, she noticed. Still screaming, she felt her arms be pulled across her stomach, cinching and tightening straps of a straightjacket encircling her chest. They writhed, like white snakes. The eyes of one by her shoulder opened that damned yellow eye that was following her. 

Vex awoke. The taste of blood, metallic and sharp, filled her mouth. She’d bitten her tongue to keep from screaming. Her heart was racing, her chest pounding up and down, her torso throbbing like a drum. 

She tried to calm herself. Her head, resting on Percy’s naked chest, feels just as it should: perfectly natural, perfectly lovely. She listens to him taking slow and methodical breaths, feels the rise and fall of his chest to match her breaths to his, listens to his heart– Vex strains her ears. Surely, she just didn’t notice… No, she would have, normally his heart was like a drum, it overwhelmed every other sound when she lay her head on his chest… She reached up to his jugular to feel for a pulse, checking also his wrist.  
“Percy!” She cried out.  
“Vex?” He awoke, squinting at her without his glasses. “What’s wrong, darling?” 

She looked to him, blinking tears away. He was fine. He was breathing. He was fine, he was here with her. “Oh, nothing, darling. Just a nightmare, I suppose.” Vex looked out the windows of their bedroom to the growing twilight outdoors, a sky growing deep red and purple. Percy sat next to her, kissing her cheek.  
“Here,” He wrapped his arms around her, enveloping her in his scent- sharp and clean, like gunpowder and sandalwood. “I’m here, darling.” He placed another kiss on her neck, tender this time.  
“I love you,” She leans into him as he pulls her back to bed. “So much, darling.”  
“I love you too, dear.” His head nuzzles against her neck. “Wake me up with the next bad dream and the next.”

The sound of a summer storm coming to fruition wakes her next. The curtains swirl madly in the wind, flinging water across their bedroom. Vex gets up to close them. She’d deal with the mess and the wet curtains in the morning. She wiped the sleep from her eyes to a hand that came away with eyeliner. She’d forgotten to take off her makeup, of course, she had. 

Vex rubs her neck, strangely sore most likely from a strange sleeping position. She fumbles half-blind into the master bathroom, flicking on only the dimmest lights so as to not bother Percy, still asleep. Vex wets her hands and begins to rub the cleanser into her skin. The soapy water stings as it drips down her neck. She rubs it and pulls her hand away with something hot and slick. Confused, Vex flicks on the other lights, twisting her shoulder to get a better view. There, in the center of the extensive bruise Percy had given her that half-covered her neck, she was bleeding. She wipes away the blood with a sheaf of toilet paper, opening the medicine cabinet for some antiseptic and a bandage. As she closes it and looks at the wound again, she realizes what strikes her as strange about it: it’s not a cut or a bite from human teeth, but, like a snake bite, two little round holes bored into her neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for medical themes, psychological horror, nightmares, blood, biting, vampires introduced. 
> 
> Thanks for reading chapter three! Be sure to leave a like and comment if you liked this work, I really appreciate it (and it helps me tell if I'm doing work appreciated by the community, which influences future chapters!) If you like my work, you can find more of it on my Tumblr @zoetriestobecoolbutnope, and you can see some more of my work in the upcoming Folk Tales of Exandria Zine (https://folktalesofexandria.tumblr.com/). Chapter four is on track for next week, wherein some research happens.


	4. I Thought It Ended When I Knew Love's Perfect Ache

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little domestic scenes, little creepy scenes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing new content-warning wise for this chapter. The same tags apply as before- we're getting deeper into the vampirism themes in this chapter but nothing with gore or smut in this chapter. Thanks for reading so far!

“First day!” Vex smiles cheerily at him as he comes into the kitchen. “Coffee?” 

“Darling, you didn’t have to.” He kisses her, caressing her soft face and pushing a lock of dark hair away from her face. 

“Couldn’t sleep, so I might as well. I’m making eggs too.” She pulls away momentarily, then comes back for a second kiss. “Sit down, we won’t always have a morning like this.”

She was right: it was shaping up to be a beautiful day. He poured a cup of coffee. “How’s the neck, darling?” 

Vex rubs her neck softly. “Still a little sore, but nothing I can’t handle, my dear. Keyleth gave me some cream for the muscles.” 

He kissed her cheek, gently, then took the plate laden with breakfast food Vex handed him. She changes the subject deftly. “Don’t you look mighty fine today, darling!” Vex adjusts his skinny grey tie, smoothing it, tugging gently on his slate-blue suit vest. 

“I could say the same of you, my dear. What are your plans for your day off?” He takes her hand, bringing her to their living room and sitting with her on their sofa. 

“Mmm. I was thinking of tackling the office today. Now that you’ve started work again, you should have a place where you can work from home. Or. You know. Call into work and say you’re grading papers at home today… and we’ll have some fun on your desk.” Vex winks. 

“Oh, Vex.” He smiles, tacitly. 

“And I’m going into town today, too.” She munches on some bacon. “Gotta buy more bacon. And other groceries. And I would like some whiskey in the house. I’m also meeting Pike for lunch.”

“Sounds like you’re keeping busy.” Percy sets down his empty plate on the coffee table. “Promise to tell me if you’re getting bored, Vex’ahlia? I know being the wife of an academic isn’t the most stimulating career. I’d sooner leave and find work elsewhere if it meant you would be happier.”

“Of course.” She kisses him. “Have a good first day, darling.” He takes the dishes, loading them into the dishwasher before heading out. “Love you!”

The door closes with a soft click. Vex waits for a beat, then fetches a leather-bound book from a shelf in the living room. She opens it on the coffee table, taking out her sketchbook and laying it on the table. Sipping at her coffee, Vex pages through the text, making notes and drawing more sketches of the snake swallowing itself. 

His first day of teaching was halfway over, and he thought to have a quick lunch in the university quad between classes. The sun shone brightly, and he squinted before settling on a park bench beneath a tree. He was, as it turned out, not the only being in search of shade– a stunning red-shouldered hawk perched on the armrest of the bench, looking at him with inquisitive yellow eyes. Strange- the pupils were misshapen; unlike most birds of prey with perfectly round pupils, this bird had pupils closer to slits than spheres. How fascinating! It must have been a mutation of some sort, or else an injury that caused the malformation of the eyes. He offered the bird a bit of his sandwich, of which it showed no interest. Vex would get a kick out of this, he thought. She loved these birds, volunteered at a sanctuary throughout college and veterinary school. Maybe she would know about this aberration! He took out his cell phone to snap a quick photo, but before he could manage, the bird had flown away- valuing privacy more than the shade provided by the great oak next to them. 

  
  


Vex checked her watch. Pike was fifteen minutes late. It was unusual for her, though Pike was never perfect at clocking out on time. She sent a quick text. “Hey, Pikey! We still on for lunch?” She drummed her fingertips on the table, sipping slowly at a glass of rosé. 

“Sorry sorry!” Pike plopped down on the seat across from her in the well lit French bistro they enjoyed frequenting. “I had a medical emergency. The patient started hemorrhaging, took forty-five minutes to find and stop the bleeding.”

“No worries, darling.” Vex sips at her wine. “Are they doing well now?”

“Who?” Pike rubs at her eyes. “Oh! Sorry, long shift. The patient. I hope so. She’s in ICU but other than the hemorrhage she should be fine. What are you drinking?”

“The Cabernet Franc. It’s nice.” She offers Pike a taste. “What do you want to eat, darling? I was thinking about a cheeseboard.” 

“Perfect. Do you want truffle fries?”

They ordered, waiting for their food and listening to the soft French pop music playing in the background. 

“How’s Percy doing?” 

“Absolutely perfect,” Vex sips her wine. “Started teaching this morning.”

“And his health?” Pike fiddles with her fork. 

“Good.” Vex hesitates for a moment before asking. “Darling, what can you tell me about hearts?” 

“Lots.” Pike blinks, “And I’m sure you know a good deal too, Vex. What do you want to know?”

“Is it possible to not feel a heartbeat even with what sounds like normal breathing?”

“This is a human, yes?” Vex nods, and Pike continues. “Yes, of course. Most commonly because many people have a hard time finding a pulse ten times out of ten, even properly trained paramedics– did you think Percy’s heart had stopped again?”

Vex bites her lip. “I did, yes.”

“Panic could be part of it, Vex. Someone you care deeply about, who you almost lost, who was returned by your through some miracle…” Pike trails off, no doubt wondering the question that almost no-one has had the heart to bring up to Vex. “A near-death shakes the strongest of us. It’s perfectly natural for panic to have taken over, causing you to miss the pulse. Of course, if you’re really worried, you should go back to the doctors, though I wouldn’t worry. He had a clean EKG, he’s fine, Vex.” 

She’d faked the tests. Run the wires from his machine to another room where she’d attached the electrodes to her chest until the test was complete, stolen a vial of donor blood to be tested instead of his. Half of the night was a blur, with the whisper of Ouroboros in her ears. Of course, she wouldn’t want Pike to worry. 

“Thank you, Pike.” 

“Good evening, darling.” Percy took a look around the octagonal room in the process of becoming his office, located in the tower attachment to their house. Plastic drop cloths were scattered around the room, protecting the hardwood floors and baseboards. His wife, radiant in paint-stained overalls, her hair in a messy bun at the back of her head, is painting one wall a soothing slate grey. 

“Oh fuck!” Says the angel, dropping her brush. She pauses the punk rock music playing– Vax’s band, attempting a new cover song. “Sorry, darling. Didn’t hear you come in! Is it six already?”

“That it is.” Percy smooths his hair. “I brought pizza, which we can eat now, or I can change and help you paint.”  
“I’m starving.” Vex wipes her hands on her overalls. Truffle fries were hours ago, now. “And I can pick this up later, just give me a minute to cover the paint up again.” 

They ate pizza sitting on a drop cloth in the hallway, Percy changed into ratty jeans and an old tee-shirt, their legs intertwined. It was natural, comfortable the way their bodies fit together, like the most perfect of puzzle pieces, lucky to have found each other.

“Oh, darling, you have a sunburn,” Vex puts down her pizza, shifting down the collar of his shirt. “Did you spend a lot of time outdoors today?”  
“Really?” Percy cranes his neck to try and look, touching it. “Ow. Indeed I do. I didn’t think I spent too much time outside, although I did eat lunch in the quad. Oh, before I forget! I saw the most wonderful red-tailed hawk today.”

“Oh, I love hawks. Did you get a photo?” 

“No, my phone was too slow to capture it. It had such a strange eye- slitted, like a snake. Do you know if it’s some sort of injury or genetic mutation, perhaps?”

Vex froze. “Like a snake? Strange. No, I’ve never seen that in a bird before.”

“Well, I hope I see it again.” Vex eyes him strangely. “To take a photo, for you.” 

“I hope to see it too, darling.” She very much didn’t. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if there's something I should tag that I missed!
> 
> Thanks for reading chapter four! It's a little shorter this week (huzzah, entering finals season), but chapter five is shaping up to be a good, *meaty* (foreshadowing), chapter. Until next time, you can find me @zoetriestobecoolbutnope on the Tumblr.


	5. The Blood is Rare and Sweet as Cherry Wine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vex hosts a dinner party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, folks! Finals threw me for a loop, and I thought I had more prepared than I actually did! (For warnings when this happens, consider checking out my Tumblr @zoetriestobecoolbutnope, where I give status updates on my fics.) 
> 
> See the endnotes for chapter-specific content warnings. Without further ado, here's chapter five!

It had been a long, long labor of love for them and their wonderful house. Percy had inherited the house and property some ten-odd years ago after the death of his parents but had little use for it until he had a job offer nearby and a fiancee and a very, very large dog appreciative of escaping a life of too-small apartments. By the time the two moved in, the house had fallen into a sad state of neglect and disrepair. They’d started, on and off again, to fix the rundown Victorian-style manse. Vex’ahlia was fearless, wielding a paintbrush in one hand and a sledgehammer in the other. She refused to let someone else paint their house, and barely let an electrician come in for lights or a handyman for heating and cooling to the old house. 

Now, almost a year later, the house was finally, finally, ready for a long-overdue housewarming party. Walking down the grand staircase, her fingertips lightly grazing the top of the wide golden oak banister, Vex felt as though every aspect of her home was hers. The ground floor was painted in warm earth tones made more brilliant by the late afternoon light from the large bay windows in the living room with its sheer golden curtain panels. 

“Trinket. Off the couch.” Her large, dark mastiff hops off their brown leather sofa, running to her as though he has never done anything wrong in his life. “We talked about this. No furniture.” He licks her face.

“How is the roast, darling?” She turns to Percy, peeking through the window in the oven door. 

“Resplendent,” He turns to her, a goofy grin overtaking his face as he takes her in. “Not unlike you, my love.”

“Oh, this old thing?” Vex twirls, the skirts of her v-neck crimson dress floating around her. Her toes sink into the plush copper and olive green rug of their living room. She turns on some soft pop music, dancing with Trinket at her heels as she makes her way over to the island counter separating the kitchen and dining room. 

“You’re looking dandy yourself.” She plants a careful kiss on his cheek, leaving a lipstick print behind. 

“I have a partner to keep up with,” He laughs. The sleeves of Percy’s charcoal grey button-down are rolled up over the elbow so as not to impede his culinary endeavors. A black suit vest, with his grandfather’s gold pocket watch chain looping from around a button just above his navel and into a pocket, covers a skinny purplish-black tie. “I’d say this is a marginal success.” 

The doorbell chimes sweetly. 

“I’ll get it,” Vex darts to the hall, quickly sliding on a pair of wedges to complete the look. “Keyleth, darling! So good to see you again. Vax.” She hugs her brother. “Come in, come in!” 

“Vex, you’ve outdone yourself! The house looks amazing.” Keyleth sets down a package on the coffee table. “We got you just a little something.”

The bell rings several more times until the house is packed with friendly faces. 

“What is that?” Vex stares at the hanging medallion, striking her brother at the sternum. The unmistakable eye of Ouroboros staring at her. 

“Oh, this?” Vax touches the necklace. “Someone threw it onstage at the last show. Cool, isn’t it?” 

“And you just decided to wear it?” 

“There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“I just don’t think you should wear something when you don’t know the significance.”   
“Since when have you ever cared about what I wear, Vex? Or, furthermore, about my thoughts on the occult?” 

“It’s not a game, Vax. You’re playing with fire, that’s all.”

Mercifully, Percy interrupts them, setting down the roast on a long cutting board on the table in between the bickering siblings. “I think it should be done correctly,” he says, carving it with a long knife. 

“It looks wonderful, Percy.” Pike smiles. 

“Is it a little rare, perhaps?” Scanlan asks. 

As Percy sliced closer to the center, the meat grew redder, nearing raw in the center. “Well, shit.” He sets down the knife. “Help yourself to the outside bits, I guess?” He laughs. “And I can go to cook anything too rare.” 

“Sit down, darling.” Vex chuckles. “This looks wonderful.” 

It was an evening of wine and good food, even though Vex couldn’t ignore the prickling feeling on the back of her neck, the eye of Ouroboros watching her from her brother’s chest.  _ What do you want from me? Or, what will you want from me?  _ She wondered. Their deal had been anything except clear. 

All around her, Vex could hear the laughter of her friends, see the flickering candlelight on the table, feel the lightest touch of Percy’s hand brushing hers. Was this truly happening? Was it really possible that Percy was alive? Was he even dead to begin with, would she wake tomorrow knowing this was a dream? 

“Vex?” Keyleth holds up a bottle of wine. “Refill?”

“Oh, yes, please.” The dark wine splashes into her glass, swirling around the sides and leaving it stained ever so slightly with the thinnest coat of the liquid. “Sorry, I’m a little out of it tonight.”

“How about a toast?” Scanlan flashes a pearly-white grin. “To our illustrious hosts, that they may have a long and wonderful life in this beautiful home they’ve made for themselves.” 

“Yeah, to life,” Vax mutters. Glasses clink together. “If your husband is still alive, that is.” 

“Vax!” Keyleth hisses. 

The mouthful of wine tastes sour in Vex’s mouth, the tannins thick against her tongue and teeth. She swallows, setting her glass down on the table. Almost lazily, she runs her finger along the edge of the glass, making the crystal ring softly. 

“Do you have a problem, Vax?” 

“Yeah, and apparently I’m the only one who’s curious about your undead husband, Stubby.” He sets his napkin down on the table. 

The room goes silent, not a person ready to speak. Vex’s finger works its way in circles around the glass, the ringing growing louder in the comparative silence. 

“That’s a little dramatic, I think,” Vex says, looking into the eye of Ouroboros on Vax’s chest. 

“He had a full physical at the hospital, Vax.” Pike interrupts. “He’s perfectly fine.”

“Please, your occult has no part of this.” Vex snaps. She looks away from her brother to her husband. The hemoglobin from the meat is forming a pool on his plate, his knife cuts through the red meat without a struggle. 

“Oh, my occult?” He snaps the cord on the necklace, dropping it on the table. “No, mine has no part here. But yours? Your occult certainly has a part here.”

There is really no logical explanation for what happens next. Vex hears the ringing of the glass ever louder. And suddenly, it stops, with the sound of shattering and the breaking of glass. Wine spills across the table as the wine glass Vex was touching shatters, sending shards across the table. 

“Oh, fuck!” she closes her fist as a fragment of glass cuts into her palm. 

“Vex, are you alright?” It looks as though no-one but she was cut. Her friends swarm her, Pike looking at the cut, Keyleth giving Vax a dirty look for bringing the topic up, to begin with. 

“Here, let me take a look,” Pike takes Vex’s hand. 

“Honestly, I’m fine.” Vex insists. “I can patch it up myself, don’t trouble yourself.”

“Stubby, this is why having a few friends who are medical professionals is a good thing,” Vax says. “Let the doctor look at your hand.”

“I can take care of myself.” Vex pulls back her hand from Pike. “Unless you all have forgotten that I have a degree.” 

She hadn’t realized she was shouting. “Thanks, everyone, for coming. I think I’m going to go to bed. Percy, could you go grab my first aid kit? I can do this by my damn self.” 

“We’re not done talking, Stubby,” Vax says. 

She hugs her brother goodbye, holding her cut hand up to reduce blood flow. 

“We are. I’ll see you soon, Vax.” 

The door closes, leaving Vex sitting at a kitchen table with a bloody hand and a medallion of Ouroboros. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Blood, rare/raw meat, yeah this is very vampire heavy, family arguments. 
> 
> Next week: A continuation, an argument, and some brutal honesty. See you then! 
> 
> If you liked this work, please consider leaving a comment and/or kudos! Thank you so so much for reading Ouroboros.


	6. Offer Me That Deathless Death, Good God Let Me Give You My Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly shorter chapter today, spending the holidays with family is not super conducive to provocative writing! No new content/trigger warnings in this chapter, only a continuation of the prior scene.

“So.” Percy sets down the first aid kit on the table. “ Do you want to talk about what just happened now or later?”

“About what?” She unzips the bag with her teeth, rummaging around for an antiseptic wipe. 

“Darling.” He takes the bag from her. “You’re bleeding. You cut yourself on glass and you won’t let anyone help you.”

“I don’t need help, I’m fine.” She stares at her hand. 

“Let me help you, please, Vex.” He takes her hand gently, starts taking bandages and gauze out of the red bag. He checks her hand for fragments of glass, and finding none, starts to clean her hand with a wipe. 

She winces as the alcohol stings. 

“Do you want to go back to work?” He sets aside the bloodied wipe. 

“I don’t know. Maybe.” She sighs. “Clearly, I’ve got some repressed thoughts about that.” 

“No matter what you choose, Vex, I’ll do it with you.” He just holds her hand for a while, his dexterous fingers stroking the back of her hand. Gently, he raises her hand to his lips, kissing it. She feels his mouth on the cut of her hand.

Something changes in his eyes. She pulls her hand away. 

Her blood is on his lips. He licks it away. 

“Vex? What’s wrong, my love?”

“Why’d you do that, darling?” She takes in shaking breaths, staring at her hand.  _ Why did I do that? _

“I lied to you, Percy.” She tries to compose herself, using her teeth to tear open a butterfly bandage and slapping it on the cut.

“About what, darling?” He asks. He was so earnest, so kind… He was the man she loved. 

“Everything.” She starts to cry. “Percy, you died. You died…”

“Darling, that’s not what the doctors said–”

“Because I lied to them too.” Vex looks him square in the eyes. “I swapped out your records for mine. I took the EKG for you, they tested someone else’s blood, not yours.”

“What are you talking about, Vex?” Percy’s brow furrows. “Why would you do that? Why wouldn’t you want to know if I was okay?”

“Because I knew you were back, and that you’d stay that way.” Vex swallows. “Because I made a deal to bring you back from the dead. It wasn’t a hallucination, darling– everything in the graveyard, everything from that night was real.” 

“A coma, Vex.” Percy starts to pace the length of the living room. “That’s what the doctors told me, fuck, that’s what you said! What was I supposed to think?”

“What was I supposed to tell you, Percy?” Vex stands, holding onto the top of her chair tightly, until her knuckles grew white. “Should I have told you about feeling you die? Should I have told you about the funeral, about grief, about burying you only to dig you out of the dirt four days later? You died of heart failure from an infection a week before, should I have given you a heart attack? What should I have done, Percy- leave you to the earth? I’m not going to apologize for that. I’m sorry for lying to you, but I won’t apologize for bringing you back.”

“Till death does us part, Vex. That’s what we swore to. Death did us part, dearest.”

“AND IT CAME TOO FUCKING SOON.” She screams. “Was I supposed to live out the rest of my life as a widow, Percival? I’m twenty-seven. We were supposed to get sixty years of marriage, not six months. And I will move heaven and earth so that we get every last minute together because I love you. That’s what you’re supposed to do when you love. You take risks, you risk your life. I’d have given you my liver, darling. If it would have helped, I’d have given you my heart. So why is it so different for me to give another part of myself?”

“You have no clue what the ramifications of this could be,” Percy says, softly. His voice is on the edge of breaking, she can tell. “I hurt you, Vex, without thinking about it. What if I can’t die? You’ve put me in your position, Vex. I can’t live without you, and I certainly can’t live with even the thought of hurting you.” 

“Then bite me harder, Percy.”

“What? No!”

“You said it yourself. You might not even be able to die. We have no clue. So, we do this like everything else we’ve done. You and me, TOGETHER.” She tugs at the tie of her dress, letting it fall to the ground. She unclasps her bra, tossing it aside. “Bite me harder, Percy. Make me like you.” 

“Vex,” He groans. 

“Do it.” 

“We can’t back out on this sort of thing, Vex, I don’t know what this would do to you I don’t know–”

“I’m already in too deep!” Vex starts laughing, crying. Her tears are hot on her face, she wipes them away clumsily from her cheeks. “I made a deal with a god, for fuck’s sake. Bite me, darling. I don’t want to leave you alone, not the way I was. This way, we’ll stay together.”

He takes his arms around her, softly stroking her hair. She collapses into his chest, her breath coming in in choppy gasps. 

“I’m sorry, Vex.”

“What are you sorry for?” 

“I’m sorry that you had to keep this a secret for so long. I’m sorry you had to do this alone, fuck, I’m sorry I died and left you alone, my love.” He wipes her eyes, holding her face in his hands. “I promise you, from now on, we’ll figure this out together, just the two of us. But let’s not make the situation worse before we know what we have to do.” 

She kisses him, feeling his warm touch on her skin, his alive body against hers. Everything would be alright, wouldn’t it? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading, commenting, and leaving likes! We're probably nearing the end of part one, where I'll take a short break to draft more before continuing. For more of my work (and the flotsam of my brain), check out my Tumblr @zoetriestobecoolbutnope, and I am also an author in the upcoming Folk Tales of Exandria Zine.


	7. My Dearest Love, I'm Not Done Yet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update! This will (probably) be the last chapter in part one, and I'll be taking a few weeks to work my chapter buffer back up again. 
> 
> Additional chapter tags at the end of the chapter, please let me know if there was something else triggering for you that I didn't tag! Tags are slightly different for this chapter, so please check them if you need to. Thank you for reading!

“Come now, my love.” He kisses her softly, the way no man but he ever could have done. He paid court to her, touching her gently, with restraint. 

She’d fallen asleep like that, Percy’s arms around her, not threatening her but protecting her, his breath lightly warming the back of her neck. She’d awoken like that, the moon shining through the paneled windows in their bedroom. 

“ _ Vex’ahlia, _ ” the voice of Ouroboros whispers, the words crawling from one ear to the other. “ _ Come to me, in the woods. _ ”

Where it all began, she thought. All this started in the woods, somewhere. Percy’s words, her words, stirred something inside her– she was beginning to think more about the deal she had made, what she had agreed to without a second thought. 

  
Say what you will, at least Vex’s god was direct. She blinked the last sleep from her eyes, gently moved Percy’s arm off her torso. She walked across their creaking floors softly to the closet to fetch a jacket as a defense against the cooling nights. Without waking Percy, she closes their bedroom door quietly, and slides down the hall, shoving her feet into hiking boots. 

The night is humming with the early-fall chirp of the cicadas, the gentle swish of dewy grass against her boots. She makes her way into the woods. 

“ _ Did you want to end the life of that fox, child? _ ” _ _ Even after all this time, the voice of Ouroboros still startled her, the way it sounded like the wind in the trees and the breath of a wolf. 

“I wish… No. It was mercy. It would not have lived much longer, and would have suffered.” Vex weaves deftly through the tight-woven trees. 

“ _ Show me what you wish you could have done _ .”

She almost trips over it, covered in the new-fallen red leaves and the duff of the forest. A fox, so similar to the one she saw that night, with the large gash across its hind leg, the white bone glistening through the fluids and the fur. 

“I don’t, I can’t, I don’t have my tools and it’s been so long…” her voice trailed off. 

“ _ Just think, Vex’ahlia. Just think, visualize what you need, and I will provide. _ ”

She closed her eyes, thought about the sutures and the disinfectant and gloves and scissors and a needle. Something cold pressed into her hand, familiar even after all this time. She opened her eyes, and started to work, sitting down on the ground with her legs crossed. 

“Easy,” She breathes, leaning down to the fox. It moves away from her as much as possible with the grave wound, frightened. She holds out her hand to the wolf, letting it smell her. “I’m going to help you, darling.” 

Part of her wanted to think this was a dream. It felt all too real for this, the slickness of the blood and the sound of the scissors trimming away the fur and the smell of the hydrogen peroxide. 

“ _ Tell me, my servant, why did you leave your work? _ ” 

“I quit just before the wedding.” She began her neat row of sutures, feeling the fox breathe beneath her hands. “I wanted to have time to myself, and then the honeymoon, and fixing up the house… I just, I guess I never got back to doing it again.”

“ _ No, Vex’ahlia. I do not want the lies you tell yourself at night, I want the truth from you _ .”

A vision floods before her eyes, making the darkened forest leave her. She recognizes the place, immediately, of course, she would- you don’t tend to forget the places where you spend years of your life. The waiting room of her practice, with its calming sea-foam walls and white trim, amber hardwood flooring and comfortable modern black leather sofas. 

Her hands rest comfortably in the pockets of her white lab coat, the techs moving past her refer to her as Dr. Vessar- something her friends, even her brother, too easily forgot about her. 

She stands in front of an exam door now, she’s reading a chart. Her heart sinks as she reads the chart. 

Mercifully, the vision fades before she can see what she knows comes next. 

“ _ Well, Vex’ahlia? Tell me, how did it end? _ ”

“I had to go in there. And I had to tell them, tell that family, that I messed up.” She swallows, remembering and thinking. Vex places the last stitch on the fox, tying the suture off and cutting it close to the skin. “I told them their pet, their beloved family member, was fine. And she wasn’t, and I missed it. And because I missed it, and because they trusted me, she spent six months in great, worsening pain, to the point where I couldn’t do anything more to fix her, to end that pain.” 

“ _ I want you to believe in me, Vex’ahlia. Believe in yourself, Vex’ahlia, you have great power within you. _ ”

The fox gets up, examining the leg. It begins to lope deeper into the forest, and with every stride, it moves with more grace until it looks like the injury was never even there to begin with. 

“Tell me what you want from me.” She sets down the scissors, pulling the gloves from her hands. “Tell me, why you chose me. I certainly was not the only grieving widow willing to sacrifice everything for their spouse.” 

“ _ In time. Did you think that a deal would be so one-sided? With all the power belonging to me? _ ”

She thought about what she had said, what Vax had said. Undeath was a strange thing, it didn’t fit with what she had thought. It was a powerful thing, that some force was keeping Percy going that wasn’t his heart.    
It was unfair, she realizes, that she’d tied Percy to this. 

“ _ No. In time, you will do more than raise the dead, more than healing. _ ”

“Tell me why you chose me.” She wipes some tears from her eyes. “Do you want me to return to my work? To stay at home? Tell me what you want from me!” 

Vex realizes she is screaming at a god. Her words hang in the air, the forest scared into perfect, unbroken silence, until the voice of Ouroboros provokes life back into it again. 

“ _ Do not fear, Vex’ahlia– go! _ ”

  
  


Trinket greeted her at the door, woken up by her late-night entry and exit. She didn’t remember the walk back to the house, overly occupied with turning over what had just happened in her mind. 

She throws away the gloves, the spent surgical needle. The scissors she keeps, setting them down on the marble kitchen counter. Vex peels away her layers, leaving her hiking boots at the foot of the stairs. She drops most of her clothing in a pile on the bedroom floor, sliding back into the still-warm sheets. Her husband reaches out to her, pulling her close. 

“I’m going to go back to work.” She whispers. Not to her asleep love, not to an eldritch god, but to herself- only to herself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, leaving likes, and commenting on Ouroboros, Vol 1! As said at the beginning, I'll be taking a few weeks between this chapter and the next, but I won't be completely gone! I post writing updates on my Tumblr, @zoetriestobecoolbutnope, and I'll quite possibly post a one-shot piece before then.   
Until next time!   
-Just

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter contains: light gore; Vex cuts open her hand in a ritual sacrifice way not a self-harming way; terrifying dreams; animal death; weird big things watching Vex in the woods; and brief medical references along with mentions of Percy's death. 
> 
> Please let me know if there's something I should tag that I missed! Thank you so much for reading, it's been a while since I've written some fanfic and I'm glad to get back into it. If you liked this chapter, please hit that kudos button or leave a comment! You can also find me on @zoetriestobecoolbutnope on Tumblr, and you can see some more of my work in the upcoming Folk Tales of Exandria Zine. Chapter two goes up next week (of a probable seven initial chapters).


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